Recycle Products

Cardboard Recycling

Too much cardboard is still being sent to landfills by waste companies. Reclaim is different, we provide certainty that recyclable cardboard is made into new products.

Reclaim collects around 6,000 tonnes of cardboard and paper each month and arranges for this to be made into new products. If we are not yet collecting your cardboard please get in touch with us. By recycling your cardboard you will reduce your cost of waste to landfill and ensure that an important resource is not wasted.

There is strong demand in New Zealand for kraft fibre from cardboard for remanufacture into various forms of packaging such as cardboard boxes, egg and fruit trays and weed matting.

Reclaim offers a range of services for the efficient and effective collection of cardboard.

Wire Cages and Metal Bins
Standard bins are 1.8m W x 1.4m H x 1.5m D with a capacity of 3.5 cubic meters. Bins can be customised to suit individual requirements. Bins are emptied on site by a front-loader truck. The bin remains on site at all times. Servicing of bins is either on-demand or a regular call schedule depending upon volumes.

Cardboard and Paper Bins
Businesses with smaller volumes of cardboard and paper or with limited space can make use of our 660 and 1100 litre collection service. Servicing is by way of a regular scheduled collection day either, weekly, fortnightly or monthly. In special circumstances where volumes warrant servicing can occur more frequently to suit your needs.

Drop Off
Reclaim offers the opportunity for individuals and organisations to drop off material free at our Station Road processing plant in Penrose. The drop off service also assists customers who do not need a regular collection service or generate occasional volumes of materials.

Frequently Asked Questions

There are older-type bin labels in circulation, these were used by us when we were known as Paper Reclaim. Our new labels are slowly replacing the older labels. You can view all our labels on our website: Understanding Labels. If you want a new label posting to you to replace an older label please use our contact form.

Paper is separated because it is recycled into two different grades of paper: chemical pulp paper (high quality papers such as copier, notebooks, etc) and mechanical pulp paper (newsprint, catalogs, thin card etc).

Mechanical pulp fibres are weak, and have the tendency to turn yellow over time or with exposure to the sun (put a newspaper in the sun for a few days to see this).

High quality papers cost more, consequently the raw materials are more expensive. Reclaim earns more money for copier and computer paper than we do for old yellow newsprint. We don't want to put high price fibres into a cheap grade of newsprint; if we have newsprint in our high quality paper, our customers will reject it.

Corrogated cardboard is most often a mixture of pulp types. Due to this, and its unbleached (brown) colour, it is most commonly recycled back into cardboard liner or medium board to make more cardboard boxes.

Once the papers are separated, they can enter the proper recycling stream. Plastics, staples, adhesives, etc are removed by robust equipment, and the fibres are reformed into new paper.

Reclaim collects paper and cardboard, cardboard is deposited direct at the paper mill or, along with paper, sorted and baled ready for transportation. Any large non-paper items, such as plastic bags and aluminium foil, are removed by hand.
At the paper mill, it is pulped: that is, water is added and it is mashed into a slush (like when you make papier maché).
The watery pulp is forced through a screen and filtered to remove any solid objects. Metal paper clips etc are removed by screening and filtering.
The ink is removed (de-inking process). Ink and other impurities separate from the paper fibres and float to the surface, where they are skimmed off.
The pulp is drained of water and dried. The cleansed pulp is then mixed with new wood fibres to be made into paper or card again. Typically paper and cardboard can be recycled up to six times before the fibres become too weak to knit together and form a bond. More and more new wood fibres need to be added to maintain a strong bond.
Lastly it is squeezed through rollers to produce rolls of new paper or cardboard packaging, depending on the original quality. The process is modified to create thicker grades of paper and card and to add any colours. The rolls are dried and stored in dry areas ready for re-use.

Corrugated cardboard manufacture includes two key steps: making kraft paper and corrugating the cardboard.
Kraft paper is separated into different grades, which will be used for the medium and the liner. These different grades of corrugated cardboard can be made by combining different grades of kraft paper.
After additional cleaning and refining steps, a consistent slurry of wood pulp is pumped to the paper-making machine, also known as a Fourdrinier machine.
These machines contain a wire mesh in which the paper is initially formed. Next, the paper is fed into massive, steam-heated rollers and wide felt blankets that remove the water.
Corrugating is done in a machine that utilizes heavy rollers. One roll of cardboard is corrugated and then glued between two other layers (liners) by the same machine. The glue is then cured by passing the cardboard over heated rolls.
One roll of medium is loaded to run through the corrugating rolls, and a roll of liner is fed into the corrugator to be joined with the corrugated medium.
Liner from another roll travels up over the corrugating rolls along a flat structure called the bridge. This liner will be glued to the corrugated medium later in the process.

A lot of the waste sent to landfills never goes away, it just stays there rotting. Some waste breaks down as harmless matter, but too much ends up producing methane gases and/or toxic sludge (both can escape landfills and harm our environment).

A Usage Report shows the amount of recyclable waste collected by us for your account the previous month, it includes all sites and all services listed under your account. The report can be downloaded in PDF or Excel formats and this information allows your businesses to report how much recyclable waste you have been able to divert away from landfills, demonstrating sustainable business practice. To view your Usage Reports you must register to access our Customer Portal.

This really depends on the type and amount of recyclable waste you generate. Reclaim sorts and prepares resources that are valued by recycled product manufacturers. If the cost of collecting these resources from you is less than what we get paid for them, then we are unlikely to charge you for removal. If the cost of collection is greater than what we get paid then we apply charges to recover our costs. These are typically made up of rental charges and/or collection fees.

Yes, as long as the correct recyclable waste is deposited in each bin this is fine. It is in your interest to collect as much communal recyclable waste as you can, as greater and more fequent collections means you can avoid charges. Small volumes of recyclable waste, collected occassionally, will likely incur charges.

We do not make recycled products: We play a crucial part in the recycling chain.
We help develop recycling policies and procedures for customers, so used resources are reclaimed rather treated as rubbish.
We ensure the right type of disposal systems are in place, depending on waste type, frequency and volume.
We provide timely collection of recovered resources, using specially designed collection vehicles.
We carefully sort and prepare recyclables for optimum resource quality for future product manufacture.
We maintain effective supply and trading arrangements with recycled product manufacturers, adhering to sustainability principles and providing recycled product assurance.

A lot of the waste sent to landfills never goes away, it just stays there rotting. Some waste breaks down as harmless matter, but too much ends up producing methane gases and/or toxic sludge (both can escape landfills and harm our environment).

Our goal is to switch businesses over to a new way of managing waste removal. By providing a Residual Waste service, we believe attention and interest in the need to divert waste to landfills will increase. Our customers are encouraged to correctly deposit their recyclable waste and reduce the amount of residual waste they generate. In doing this, waste collection schedules become less frequent and/or larger bins are replaced by smaller bins, leading to the eventual removal of bins and no waste going to landfills. This process signals progress towards zero-waste, all leading to reduced landfill waste and reduced running costs.

This is not a separate service, it is only offered combined with one or more of our recycling services. It is only available in the Auckland region.

Our customer service system is designed to manage information supplied via web-based contact forms so we can ensure your specific enquiry is managed by the right people. Our telephone operators also use these forms. If you are already a customer, register for a user name and log in on our Customer Portal. You will then be able to view your information and request services specific to your needs. Otherwise, please use the Contact Form and specify the nature of your enquiry. If you want to join Reclaim, complete our Join Reclaim form and we will be in touch soon.

It has been estimated that more than 30,000 tonnes of waste paper is still going to landfill in Auckland every year. Most of this is bulky cardboard and lightweight bags of office paper that on average costs $300.00 per tonne to landfill (figure based on 150kg per 4 cubic metre front loader bin at $45.00 per empty). This equates to a staggering $9 million cost to those businesses not currently recycling. It is little wonder that paper recycling is so popular when people understand its significance.

Before recycling took off, paper was made from 75% fresh wood and only 25% recycled paper. We now see this reversed, made from 75% recycled paper and 25% fresh wood.
Recycling one tonne of paper saves 31,700 litres of water as much more is needed when using fresh wood. More energy is saved as the need for grinding wood into pulp is decreased. The whole conversion process takes less than an hour.

We estimate that, each year, we collect the equivalent of 144 million Yellow Pages Directories, 65 million Glass Stubbie Bottles and 85 million 1litre Plastic Milk Bottles. This volume of saved waste all equates to around 340 large shipping containers placed on a rugby pitch and then stacked 30 leayers high.